


"Lady make note of this -- One of you is lying.”

by violetsandbirches



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Analysis, Can be seen as either romantic or platonic, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 11:52:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7573066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetsandbirches/pseuds/violetsandbirches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The invaluable thing about Petyr was this: for all his golden lies, he always had a kernel of ugly truth.</p>
<p>(If you saw the trick being laid for you, and knew what it would cost you, yet you walked into it willingly, did it still count as a trick? Did it even matter?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Lady make note of this -- One of you is lying.”

Sansa walks away from the Godswood. There is a feast to finish preparing and attend. She has already spoken to everyone she needs to speak to: her brother, her vassals, the improvised handmaids she’s gathered, the servants. Petyr.

Even in warm halls of Winterfell, she is cold. There is a voice inside her head, a voice that sounds so much like Arya, bold and unsilenceable, that whispers in her ears: _Why did you let him open his mouth? You knew he wouldn’t say anything real. So why did you let him do it anyway? Why are you letting him stay? ~~Why did you almost kiss him?~~_

What Arya never understood, (and in all likelihood never would, would never grow up to find out what her sister’s done to survive), was that “real” wasn’t the same thing as “true”. Lies were Arya’s bane, but these days lies were Sansa’s bread and butter.

Everyone knew that Lord Baelish wasn’t to be trusted. Nothing he said was real. Yet Sansa was confident that she was the only one who realized that just because his words weren’t real, didn’t mean they weren’t useful. Everyone knew that Littlefinger lied, but only she knew that he was at his most dangerous when he wasn’t lying.

 

. . . . . . .

 

The invaluable thing about Petyr was this: for all his golden lies, he always had a kernel of ugly truth. She may have always had a weakness for pretty things, pretty pictures. But it was for his ugliness that she truly let Baelish stay by her side.

To be sure, his lies had pieces of truth woven into them as well. After all, the best lies are the the ones that resemble a more favorable version of reality. For example: Lysa _was_ a madwoman, and she _would_ have likely killed herself if Petyr abandoned her. It wasn’t difficult to convince the lords of the Vale. Just because things happened a different way doesn’t mean it couldn’t have happened the way they’d said it did. But those unrealities and mistruths were easy enough for Sansa to pick apart and manipulate. In this respect, the pupil had exceeded the teacher.

No, if that had been Littlefinger’s only strength, Sansa would have killed him back in Mole’s Town. Even if she had believed his excuses and groveling, ( ~~she did~~  she didn’t), he would have been worthless to her, and worthless things didn’t last for very long in Westeros. With Brienne at the sword, it would have been a mercifully quick death, better than he deserved. Even if he always wanted more than he deserved, so much more than just mercy.

But Littlefinger, (oh, clever Petyr!), he didn’t live this long with only one good trick in his arsenal. And this was the trick that put all the others to shame: he had this way of picking through facts she already knew and holding them up to the light, the nasty ones she didn’t want to admit, and drive her to action.

He told her she was a terrible liar after her betrothal was dissolved, and it was true; she improved her lying until its dexterity surpassed his. He told her how death will guarantee a man’s silence forever, the splash of Hollard’s corpse still echoing against the ship, and it was true; she killed Ramsay’s spirit and then she killed his body, leaving his words to fade into nothingness and silence. He told her overlooking Moat Cailin that she would have no justice in the world unless she made it, and it was true; she pleaded and lied and fought for the retaking of Winterfell and won. He told her that she needed an army loyal to her, still speaking even when it was clear that she wanted his silence more, and it was true; she called on ~~his~~ her army and decided the fate of the battle.

(If you saw the trick being laid for you, and knew what it would cost you, yet you walked into it willingly, did it still count as a trick? Did it even matter?)

Now he’s told her she has the stronger claim to the North.

What makes this trick of Petyr’s so good, so deft, so _brilliant_ was in how it couldn’t be undone. Even the best of mistruths and unrealities can be toppled with enough effort, but once you drag a nasty, ugly fact into the light of day––it can never be unseen. Sansa knows in her heart of hearts, (or whatever is left of it, anyway), that she can alter the past to suit her present as much as she likes, but she can never forget the lessons he has taught her. She will never be a poor liar again, never be without access to an army of her own, never expect someone else to deliver justice for her.

 

. . . . . . .

 

That last bit may have been a lie–or not a lie, but not the entire truth, for there’s something else that makes this trick so potent, a trick that only Littlefinger could conceive of and only Petyr could pull off.

It is this: he tells you a secret you already know. You may have already known it, but now you cannot ignore it. And then, (and this is the key): he steps back. He leaves you to do with this knowledge as you will. Of course, he holds the solutions in the palm of his hand, and he would gladly give them to you. But you must step forward, you must ask. To gain any power _from_ him, you must first concede power _to_ him. And you cannot ignore how badly you need ~~him~~ that power.

 

. . . . . . .

 

Lord Baelish sits on a bench by the wall, and looks at no one but Princess Sansa. She told herself that all she needed was a bit of recognition. Just a few words. Denied even that much, she cannot stop herself from thinking about that Northern throne, and her place in relation to it. Princess Sansa. It should have been Queen Sansa.

Jon is sweet and strong. A teacher, a warrior, a brother–but no king. He knows naught of politics, he is too focused on the wights to rule his kingdom well or listen to his subjects’ needs, his birthright is shaky at best. Her reasons are different, kinder than those of Lord Baelish, but her opinion was the same. It should have been Queen Sansa, Queen in the North. It could be yet.

She and Baelish are the only ones sitting down during the impromptu coronation. She out of polite deference, he because no one but she could see him and no one but she would care. It gives them each a perfect vantage point to observe the other. Sansa looks at him with her blue eyes as clear and unrelenting as any nasty truth. And he looks back, cold gray battling with hot green battling with pupils dilated enough to swallow her whole. She will not step forward to him just yet. There is a time and place for these things, and this is not the place. It will be time soon enough, after the revelry drizzles to a close, those not drunk or sleeping seeking solitude in their own warm rooms. The place to discuss things would be outside, in the unrelenting cold, where the wind could disguise their ugly truths.

_Perhaps the Godswood would suffice,_ she muses, and suddenly she is remembering those meetings with Petyr’s proxy all those moons ago, and their own meeting just hours before. Already he has set the wheels in her head turning, plotting against the only family she has left, (but it was for the good of the North, for Jon’s own good, wasn’t it?)

Oh, but she hates him so much that she could almost love him.

**Author's Note:**

> Regardless of whether she may love Petyr or not, Sansa keeps him around despite knowing his true nature and all he's put her through. I think it's fascinating the ways he makes himself useful to her, and the way she knowingly plays into his games because they can still serve her well. (For the sake of the fic, we're going to say that Ramsay was an anomaly.) There's such a delicious tangle of (mis)truths and power-play between these two. Basically, we're exploring what is true and what is a lie, which of them is more powerful and if it even matters.
> 
> The title is a quote from Dorothy Parker:
> 
> “By the time you swear you're his,  
> Shivering and sighing.  
> And he vows his passion is,  
> Infinite, undying.  
> Lady make note of this --  
> One of you is lying.”


End file.
